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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23452246">Pete Wentz's Android Diaries</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spidereese/pseuds/Spidereese'>Spidereese</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fall Out Boy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Restaurant, Alternate Universe - Robots &amp; Androids, Androids, But mostly fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, No Romance, Short Chapters, Time Travel, Trans Patrick Stump</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 05:55:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,763</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23452246</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spidereese/pseuds/Spidereese</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Pete is an Android in the Intertime Witness Protection Program. He gets sent to late 1940s Chicago and befriends threw aspiring musicians who he is not supposed to befriend. </p><p>Here be their day to day adventures, in no chronological order.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Andy Hurley &amp; Patrick Stump &amp; Joe Trohman &amp; Pete Wentz, Pete Wentz &amp; Everyone</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. March 2nd 1948</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He thought he was overselling himself.</p><p>Pete was told to not get too close to anybody, and he answered that it wasn’t his fault he was so charming. He was joking, he knew he was a disaster, he knew he was going to drive people away, knew it wouldn’t be a problem.</p><p>But then Pete met them. Then Pete got external support, laughs, encouragement. He wasn’t sure if it was Andy getting a library card for the sole purpose of helping him read The Little Prince or Joe sneaking in free sodas with his order or Patrick getting him to Lake Michigan’s beaches in the middle of winter to look at the sunset... but Pete was itching to crash.</p><p>Why wasn’t he allowed to grow close to people? Becaus Pete was an Android in the Intertime Witness Protection Program. Yes, really. He wouldn’t have been allowed to become friends with a human in his own era anyways, but he logically assumed it would’ve been that much harder to become friends with three humans in 1947 Chicago where he was sent.</p><p>And it turned out he was wrong; because emotions he didn’t know he could feel were sneaking up on him like fingertips on his neck and tearing him apart like nails on a chalkboard.  The only thing keeping him from telling his friends the truth was the number 207 imprinted on his shoulder as if he were cattle...and by that point he had started covering it up with a Band-aid.</p><p>He found himself on 63rd Street once again, throwing back a frisbee at some white kid while trying to write. Human speech was always off for him, but he had become addicted to it. He couldn’t think his thoughts in code, not anymore.</p><p>Spring was setting in,as was construction around the Chicago power grid after the war; electricity Pete depended on to survive. Diners fed the workers, diners like Joe’s. </p><p>Well, it was an exaggeration to say the diner was his. That place was the Trohman family’s,  and Joe had occasionally (constantly) described it as a fungal rot on his sandwich.</p><p>That thought made Pete drop his focus and he eventually closed his notebook, a notebook full of lines he’d try to sell to make a living. It was like spraying and praying with a non-automatic gun, disorganized thoughts shooting everywhere when he couldn’t afford them to.</p><p>Oh, yes, back to the diner. The only place in Chicago that exclusively played Charlie Christian on a jukebox despite no legal obligations to do so. Employing wannabe guitarist Joe Trohman and mysterious-gentleman-who-is-mysteriously-happy-about-not-cooking-the-meat-for-burgers Andy Hurley.</p><p>And then there was Patrick, Joe’s older best friend and certified musician better than any Muddy Waters or Charlie Christian. At least from Pete’s point of view, because due to some atrocity of the universe he was struggling to get signed.</p><p>Notes and receipts were flying between Joe and Andy during the workers’ lunch break, most of them with inside jokes on the back. It was like a completely different tongue to Pete, so stealing them from Joe at the end of the day was always a highlight. The doodles about the guy with the bird’s nest on his head? He had seen them a million times already and he’d yet to find the poor man.</p><p>Patrick was patching up the dying press in the back, son of a technician that he was. Pete and Patrick actually bonded over it when they met... Patrick has forced him to read H.G Wells at some point. Pete was flabbergasted by the lack of accurate time travel and joked as much. He preferred Hemingway like that.</p><p>Pete leaned over the counter, looking at Patrick with a smirk. </p><p>“Ya looked at the ink cartridges yet?”</p><p>Patrick sighed “If it’s the cartridges again I’ll murder Joe in cold blood...”</p><p>“Wow, we got an Al Capone code red over here.”</p><p>Joe ran about, whistling along to the yet another Charlie Christian song innocently as Patrick’s worst annoyances were confirmed. Like clockwork, Andy walked over to Patrick with a cheese grater in his hand as he cooked, which probably took Patrick’s plans from an 11 to a 6.</p><p>Pete couldn’t wait to see the prank war unfold over the next few days, inevitably breaking the press down again. As if Chicago teenagers hadn’t driven the place to the ground yet, a bunch of grown men in their 20s were going to do the job for them.</p><p>Pete may have been able to survive any magnitude of car crash, but he knew for a fact that his heart wasn’t going to live this spring down.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. December 25th, 1947 / Tevet 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first Christmas Pete spent with his friends was not even Christmas: It was Hanukkah.</p>
<p>Patrick had been avoiding his family since 1945, so it wasn't his first holiday season spent with Joe. It had become a custom. </p>
<p>Andy's mom had always been busy with work on Christmas even before the war, Andy and his siblings quickly taking up the habit of busying themselves up to the point where Christmas was always postponed to New Year's. Not to mention Pete didn't even have a family to go to, so it was a no-brainer for the group to get together on the 25th of December.</p>
<p>Or better yet, it would have been a no-brainer, had it not been for the invisible imprint around Pete's wrist with that exact date written on it. A whirlwind of antiseptic shattered Pete's senses whenever it was touched.</p>
<p>It was the court date that Pete's safety as a witness hinged on, and Pete was trying really hard not to think about it while with his friends. Do not open before Christmas. Do not open before Christmas. Do not open-</p>
<p>On the topic of his friends, Pete always thought Joe's eyes were grey. Until he saw his family, that is. That's when he started appreciating that tint of blue that came out in the right light.</p>
<p>“That's the prettiest shade of blue.” Joe answered. He was sitting on a pillow playing dress-up with his kid sister, wearing his mom's formal dress. It was a ruched one with a sweetheart neckline, probably the most expensive one she owned, and it paired amazingly with her statement hat the size of Clark Street that could barely mask Joe's giant grin when turned upside down. The front of Joe's hair was stuck in a victory roll that was slowly unraveling in protest, making the whole situation that much better.</p>
<p>The girl was prancing around, picking up everything she could and throwing it into the outift, all the while rattling her gelt around in the pocket of her skirt to match the tune her mom was humming in the kitchen.</p>
<p>Andy was waiting like a lady at a hair salon for the same treatment, reading a faded comic book on an armchair next to Joe and making the occasional observation along with Joe's younger brother.</p>
<p>Pete and Patrick however were completely disengaged from the entire affair, instead caught up by a much more serious issue: Rummikub.</p>
<p>Specifically, the fact that Pete was consistently winning ridiculous scores in their games despite having never played it before, and/or the fact that Patrick was still annoyed at Pete after he stopped winning because ‘stop letting me win, I'm not a dang kid!’</p>
<p>Joe's sister proceeded to stick her tongue out at Patrick in an especially unladylike manner, which got him to ease up and laugh. He easily convinced Pete to play some made-up game with dice and driedel instead, which the android didn't realize would lower his mechanical advantages significantly. </p>
<p>“Patrick, I love you. But your singing career is the one thing keeping me from shoving these things down your trachea-”</p>
<p>“You didn't even know what a trachea was until this Tuesday, Pete,” the human answered without missing a beat.</p>
<p>Joe sat down next to the boys with a chuckle, dolled up as ever for the occasion. That got the two friends to break out of their world and glace at the next down the line: Andy.</p>
<p>And when Andy briefly took off his shirt to replace it with a mended blouse, Pete noticed a mark on his shoulder similar to his own. 262.</p>
<p>Without any word or sign, Pete let go of the dice and dragged Andy out onto the hallway, sensations dull and mouth tight. He unbuttoning his shirt enough to drag it out to his shoulder and show Andy the 207 carved into his own...</p>
<p>Andy was obviously confused, he shouldn't have been, he- “You're from Maine?!"</p>
<p>Pete was taken aback. He was still going by his WitSec-provided identity by that point and that was nowhere in his story, but he played along. He nodded, the bolts in his head still buckling.</p>
<p>Andy however, calmed down. “Excuse me, I just never expected you to be from further outside Illinois than me... And I also thought tattooing social security numbers on kids wasn't a particularly common idea."</p>
<p>Oh. So that was what it was about. Looking closer at the marking on Andy, it was obvious that the string of numbers didn't end there. It was off.</p>
<p>Pete decided to keep the conversation going, let it ease off. He laughed unnaturally. “I always found the idea odd, too. So how'd you end up in Chicago, buddy? If you don't mind me asking.” </p>
<p>Andy shrugged. “My mother moved when I was young to be closer to my father, and her family disowned her for it. She then got a job as a nurse in the downtown, and by the time my father passed away she was tethered to this city." He didn't sound sad about the fact, there was an edge of gratitude in his tone.</p>
<p>“But Maine is quite a bit further from Wisconsin, man...”</p>
<p>Pete tried to arrange the facts and fictions together in his head, make up a timeline, a story but- it would've fallen flat compared to the honesty on Andy's part.</p>
<p>“I fell into the wrong hands,” he responded simply before his thoughts started moving his words around for him. “I had more of a choice than most, but that's not saying much, they lied and manipulated what little choice I had- I only had one way out when things got dire and...I took it. I thought it would mean freedom...I don't know anymore. I care about my life now more than I ever have, and I care about you and Patrick and Joe- and I'm scared of my past catching up to me and it's all too much.”</p>
<p>He would have immediately regretted saying it, but then Andy hugged him and whispered that things would get easier.</p>
<p>When Pete came back to the living room, he expected stares. Instead he got a pillow thrown at his face with full force.</p>
<p>Joe laughed, but before Pete could get back on his feet Patrick had already avenged his friend by catching the aspiring guitarist into a net of lace and snapping him onto the couch for Joe's sister to throw a teddy bear on him.</p>
<p>The rest of the Trohmans were making dinner and pretending to not hear anything outside the kitchen, which was always a good sign.</p>
<p>Pete laughed, genuine as ever this time, and hit Andy with the pillow before leaping to hide behind the couch. Now Patrick was his only ally in the fight. And what a fight it was...</p>
<p>Those 24 hours would be etched into Pete's memory for a variety of reasons, from the trial to the conversation with Andy to the way he'd end up talking to the other three for the entire night. He'd seen things the rest of the world never would, and he cherished them.</p>
<p>Jokes were built off that night. Trust was built off that night, Pete's entire life would be built off that night in ways he could never even imagine at the time.</p>
<p>And frankly Andy was right: It would get easier some day.</p>
<p>But before things get easier, they tend to get a whole lot harder.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>My timeline was set around the Gregorian calendar and I had trouble changing the date in retrospect so I apologise for that. I was also raised Eastern Orthodox so if I make any mistakes concerning Jewish faith, please correct me!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. September 5th, 1947</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The origin story™</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Pete first met Patrick in humid September, a few days after arriving in Chicago.</p><p>The sunset was dripping from a cracked window in the back of the diner, it only did that to make Patrick happy. The sun was never like that for Pete, his sky only ever burned humes from toxic green polar light.</p><p>Right in front of the sunset was a ginger young man, rereading his own journal, inattentive to the world around him. Pete always wished he'd have been like that. Fragile round wire glasses circling hazel eyes, and carelessly pushed away from his ears by a fedora. He kept tapping his foot and fiddling with his coat to reveal a mended sweater.</p><p>Pete didn't need the food, he needed a place to stay. The system offered him an identity and a month of energy which was expected to last until his trial. He'd inevitably have to find an energy source of his own, and the power grids next to the diner were worth a try... But for now he needed a place to stay.</p><p>He sat a few seats away from the man. He read and reread the menu, trying to assemble some sort of meaning out of “Joe's cup of Joe." The menu was above the kitchen, printed out and taped, mostly dirty and yellow from the years gone by. A few parts were shining white, new recipes. On the left was a red piece of knitting, flattened in-between glass, the numbers 24/7. The smell was oily beyond recognition.</p><p>Would he have been allowed to stay there? The ginger didn't notice his presence, not until another man in the backroom shouted out for help. That's when he closed his journal, a slightly annoyed puff giving out like the beat-up motor of an old car.</p><p>When the human took notice of him, he made sure to take the long way from the counter to get to the backroom, avoiding catching glimpses.</p><p>He emerged later carrying multiple bags of potatoes and other various vegetables, joined by a man with grey eyes and short, curly hair that wasn't quite tamed. They hid the pale brown bags under the counter.</p><p>Pete smiled, waiting to get their attention, but only the one with curly hair raised his head to meet him. </p><p>The man looked rather exhausted, but he straightened his back and smiled back anyhow as the other one went back to his seat. “Hi, buddy, I'm... Joseph, what can I do for you?” </p><p>Pete thought it over for a second. He couldn't actually buy anything and he didn't have any good ideas in mind when coming here but he had always been good at generating them. As usual the excuses came pouring into his headspace, drowning any other function.</p><p>“Hi, I'm new in town and I didn't know who to approach. I'm looking for a place to stay —temporarily— until I make enough cash to rent, and this seems like a family business so you probably know your way around the city. Any place you know where I can crash, in exchange for services, maybe?”</p><p>A chuckle ringed out in the back, and Joseph just blinked. “So, does this mean I don't need to reheat the oven again? You're not ordering anything?” </p><p>Pete nodded, having expected the guy to be disappointed. Instead he looked like he was about to hand him the keys to the city.</p><p>“See, Patrick? The world isn't rigged against us, and cynicism doesn't get you anywhere. Now button up your shirt, were going out!"</p><p>The man, Patrick, stared at him in bewilderment. “Jesus, Joe, don't tell me you're actually gonna leave this place in the hands of a homeless man you just met-” </p><p>“No offense meant?” Pete sketched jokingly, but the others ignored him. “None taken," he sighed.</p><p>“You know you wanna play there, we've been shelling out for that mic for ages, and I'm sure this dude won't object to ...pretending... to work here a few hours on an empty Thursday.”</p><p>“You've gotta be kidding me, how do you know he won't do anything? And I don't just mean stealing. You sell food, dude, contamination is a real problem-" </p><p>“Sometimes I forget you've got a background in health," the man giggled, finally turning around to acknowledge Pete. “I didn't catch your name, by the way."</p><p>He was stricken, fidgeting with his sleeve. “Pete-eer, Peter Wentz but most of everyone calls me Pete. Won't let you down-” (What rank was even appropriate, the man barely looked eighteen...) “Sir? Nevermind, that sounded terrible the moment it left my mouth-”</p><p>Joe laughed. Hard. “Don't-" laugh. “-worry, man, it's the thought that counts.” </p><p>Patrick finally closed his journal, playing along with Joe. “We've got fifteen minutes left until we need to leave, you might as well teach him the ropes...”</p><p>Joe's eyes sparkled almost as brightly as the fire that would replace them in a few hours...</p><p>“I suppose they don't call 'em one-eyed-Petes for nothing...” “Very funny, Patrick!”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>If you've made it this far: thanks!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. January 3rd, 1948</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Patrick makes Pete feel better. Also, puppies.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Pete's mood wasn't any better after he proved himself innocent.</p><p>He was meant to be happy. He seemed happy immediately after the trial, when everyone was gifting each other Christmas presents and chatting, but it didn't stick.</p><p>The faces that showed up at the trial, the things he'd emptied his guts out about... those were things he had been running away from for months. Years, in his own head. Facing them head on left him an anchor, sinking down into the ocean, rusting. Nothing but a loose bolt of the criminal machine that ticked away without him.</p><p>He yearned for the way the sunset would drape the windows in the diner, now fogged and building up snow on the edges. The same fog spotted Patrick's glasses as he walked inside, meeting eyes with Pete. Some things never change. </p><p>Pete had written down his anguish in the form of bad poetry, scribbled on the edges of what was supposed to be journalism. He had aquired a job writing columns for local newspapers that liked his methodicalness and order; two things he despised on principle. Two things that didn't feel human enough.</p><p>The fatigue was breaking him. The scrape of the iron outlining the diner table kept mixing in with the scrape of the iron inside of his arms. He could hear himself tapping his foot in frustration despite the fact that he couldn't actually feel his feet...even he would later admit he looked haunted, with his eyes sunken. Joe was smoking in the back, out of sight, and Andy was back with his family for the weekend. Which left him and Patrick alone.</p><p>What was the worst part of the trial, anyhow? Finding out that the one person who cared enough to let him escape was found dead and couldn't be called for testimony? Or was it the conclusion: knowing that recidivism would get him killed, in a context in which sympathising with humans was considered recidivism? They expected him to not sympathise with humans when humans were the ones sympathising with him...either the system was planning his downfall or didn't care enough to stop it.</p><p>They built Pete to be rational, so of course he also had to be emotional. Humans would often say that emotions clouded one's judgment, but that thought never stood up to scrutiny. Emotion was the basis for learning, for valuing things, for logic.</p><p>And in this example - turn to page 394, kids- , his emotions were the basis for him very rationally deciding to slide off the diner couch, exhausted, in response to Patrick's grave offense of expressing concern.</p><p>Pete heard a quiet gasp in the air before Patrick leaned down to check his vitals. That would've had disastrous repercussions for both of them, so the android managed to drag himself back up through fear alone.</p><p>“What- Shoot, Pete! Are you okay?”</p><p>“No. I mean, yeah. Just life. Don't worry about it,” he answered in fragments, which got him a slow and painfully uneasy nod from Patrick. Every worried question adressed to him hit him like a wall of bricks at ninety miles an hour.</p><p>“Okay, then. Well, what do you usually do when it's just life?” </p><p>And Pete didn't have an answer for that, so he winged it. “Take a guess.”</p><p>Patrick looked down at Pete's papers,reading the parts on the side with interest. Oh.</p><p>“These are good," Patrick remarked, with another question bubbling up at the tip of his tongue. “Are they working for you?”</p><p>“As much as you'd expect.” </p><p>He didn't want to face Patrick, his writing, or his emotions, although if he had to it would've been in that order. Instead he took the path of least resistence and looked out the window.</p><p>Patrick went quiet afterwards, reading, hand in Pete's. Pete turned out to be terrible at keeping silence, clearing his throat awkwardly instead. Observation: it burned.</p><p>He looked at Patick. “What do you do when it's just life? Outside music, I mean.”</p><p>Patrick's gaze seemed to follow him to the window, bullseye on the lakeside. “The weather isn't perfect for hanging by the lake, but if it'd make you feel better it's not the worst idea...”</p><p>‘Not the worst idea’ tended to be great by Pete's standards, so they blasted down the steet with light jackets.</p><p>They accidentally rung the bell by the door, getting Joe to come back and look at them in confusion. He hadn't noticed Pete's mood until now, seeing as Pete had done his best to hide it while walking inside.</p><p>That was all irrelevant now, while his footprints in the snow got closer and closer to each other, coming to a halt. They jumped past a tired chainlink wire fence and got on the boardwalk, restless and warmed up by the exercise, by which time his breath hitched. The sanitizer smell of salt water had risen up, fighting the fog. The sun sat on the edge of the horizon, a half hour away from drowning, and heavy storm clouds encircled him like hungry sharks awaiting the inevitable.</p><p>He wiped the snow off the low, split-rail barrier between the boardwalk and the beach before sitting on it, mesmerized as Patrick followed along. The lake seemed vast, endless and despite the weather, surprisingly calm. It managed to relax him as apposed to the confined single room of the diner.</p><p>He didn't know why he had come to the diner at all, but he speculated it had something to do with the fear of being alone. </p><p>“Do you remember...” Patrick began a few minutes later in a sweet voice, stuttering slightly from the cold. He had a tendency of catching Pete off-guard. “...the second time you came to the diner? I wouldn't talk to you.”</p><p>He remembered it vividly. Patrick had stood there in the back, and he had flinched when Pete took off his coat, only to ignore everyone for the rest of the day with his eyes absorbed in an Alan L. Hart book.</p><p>“It was because of your tattoos. I hadn't expected you to have served, and I was scared you'd, well, know me from before,” he admitted, dragging his glasses back to the bridge of his nose.</p><p>Pete raised an eyebrow but Patrick didn't meet his eyes enough to notice. “I thought Joe said you had a background in health.”</p><p>“It was put on hold during the duration-” was the immediate response, before the ginger man sighed. “That's technically true, at least.”</p><p>Considering what Pete had learned during the holidays about Patrick, something about the situation clicked in his brain. Health professionals were spared the draft. “Did you decide to join the war effort instead of getting your degree? I'd see why that wouldn't have gone down well with your family.”</p><p>“I was the one who cut contact, actually. It's... complicated,” Patrick admitted. Pete gave him a knowing nod, putting his hand on Patrick's shoulder and looking back at the sun. Patrick was shivering, which got Pete to suddenly realize how terrible the weather was by human standards.</p><p>“I was a nurse during the war. I'm-uh, still a man, thought, they just got me wrong at first. My family didn't exactly want to admit it,” Patrick hinted.</p><p>Pete blinked, taking a second to get around the euphemisms and understand what Patrick had meant. “Oh.” </p><p>“Yeah, oh.”</p><p>“And you're a man, so you ran away to Chicago?” Pete joked, with a ridiculous grin on his face. He was met with a mild chuckle.</p><p>“I mean, Chicago has a better music industry that Wilmette, so that sure played a part.” </p><p>“Honestly, 'Trick, if you didn't come to them, they would've come to you,” Pete affirmed proudly.</p><p>“It would've been a whole lot cheaper than moving out, at least.” And Pete watched the air from Patrick's mouth turn to steam as it met the freezing wind. Their voices had started to be muffled by the flurry, and the wintry mix has slowly started seeping out into the atmosphere.</p><p>That was enough cue for the both of them to leave. </p><p>Pete wasn't entirely sure where they were going, but he followed Patrick up the fire escape of an older, shallow building a few blocks away. They climbed all the way to the attic, which Patrick had rented. The stairs inside the building were tall and hollow, not to mention they were blocked out by a fence on the fifth floor from what Patrick had told him.</p><p>Pete has stumbled into the apartment's small kitchen right after the window has been opened. Patrick was shivering like mad behind him, and it only took Pete three seconds of running around to figure out the layout of the attic before he found the closest blanket and threw it onto Patrick. </p><p>Patrick rolled his eyes, but still wrapped the blanket tightly around himself as he studied the cabinets. He was painfully resourceful, and that showed in the way he stored food. “Cup of tea? You weren't drinking anything at the diner,” he pointed out.</p><p>Pete nodded with a smile, closing the window behind them before staring out of it. The sun was setting for good underneath all that storm, beautiful between the buildings that were now separating Pete from the sea.</p><p>He wouldn't have cared if he died for this anymore. Recidivism be damned, it would've been worth it if only to stand there at the window, as Patrick hummed, making tea in a cup that was undeniably borrowed from the diner...Joe was always rather loose with possessions, and it seemed both Pete and Patrick had learned to take advantage of it.</p><p>He peered out of the kitchen, and into the rest of the narrow and elongated attic. The other big room was a living room but with a small bed and a desk in the corners, all the furniture keeping to itself. The door was being banged by something on the other end, and when Pete pointed it out to Patrick, the other vaguely gestured to ‘let him in’.</p><p>He was met by a dirty puppy who immediately ran him over. The creature looked rather content trying to demolish Pete, so the android happily played along and fought with him on the cold wooden floor. Patrick has to remind him to actually close and lock the door.</p><p>“I asked around and apparently some poor guy from the 4th floor passed away because of injuries from the war. His dog, I think her name was Fannie, got adopted a year later but her new litter of puppies weren't. This one in particular stuck around. He gets fed by my neighbor, Miss Flack, from time to time, but I don't think anyone's claimed him," Patrick blurted out, rambling on without realizing.</p><p>Pete didn't mind. He just listened and let him finish, playing with the dog in his lap and getting dirt all over his arms before stating his thoughts out plainly: “I'm calling him Hemingway.”</p><p>Patrick smiled, giving Pete a cup of tea before sitting down at the desk. “Like Ernest Hemingway? It does suit him, I guess...Does that mean you plan on adopting him?”</p><p>Pete hadn't thought that far out into the future, and the realization that he couldn't raise a dog at the moment did not occur to him. “I don't know. I'm pretty sure Andy has a librarian friend who'd want him, but I don't really trust her.”</p><p>That was a lie, for the record. And he knew he was just selfish, but something about Hemingway made him not want to give him up. “I can come here in the evenings, take care of him. Is that okay?"</p><p>Patrick looked to the fragmented pages on his desk before nodding. “Sure, but try not to be a distraction,” he joked.</p><p>After that, Pete gained a concrete blueprint for his days. He'd spend most of it writing newspaper colums and journal entries by the board walk or the library, helping out in the diner before turning in that day's work. If his friends had a concert, he'd be there in the audience (or, in Joe's case, covering his shift), but he'd always end up sneaking in through the fire escape.</p><p>He would clean Hemingway up, play with him every day. He soon started making Patrick coffee and helping out with lyrics or sometimes chord progressions that just weren't mapping out, not to mention making sure Patrick actually took care of himself. That was a two-way street, as he discovered.</p><p>When Patrick would finally fall asleep, Pete would go back out and get energy from the grid before finding a place to stay the night, sometimes crawling back to Patrick's if he couldn't help it.</p><p>Sometimes they'd have stupid debates, and sometimes they'd listen to Patrick's neighbors blast the radio broadcast. Sometimes Pete would come over with books, and sometimes Andy would drop by to play card games. Sometimes Patrick would hug Pete the moment he entered because a song they'd ghostwritten together had gotten picked up and it could have been Patrick's big break, and maybe he wouldn't have to sing other people's terrible songs in bars to keep the lights on. Hemingway tended to be more hyper those days.</p><p>Sometimes life would just prove itself to be worth it.</p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. May 11th, 1948</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Let's get this plot going! Sorry for taking so long to upload ^_^</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Look, instrumentals and lyrics: promising, I'll give you that. You've got a nice jump groove, but we're entering an era of singers! This kid just doesn't have a Frank Sinatra in him. Stage shy, no presence on a stage, and heavens to Betsy, he sounds like a girl! Might as well pass him up as one...”</p><p>Patrick twiddles his thumbs nervously. No comment.</p><p>Pete shoots up, his hands pushing off the interviewer table. “He writes all the melodies, we're not going through without him.”</p><p>Joe shoots Patrick an understanding glance, squirming low in his seat. Patrick rolls his eyes. “Oh, no, not this again-” </p><p>They're being intimidated by a messy, claustrophobic room. It's the dream office of a skeezy lawyer, with furniture all colonial and patriotic, standing out against the walls that are outlining new technology from the war. It's good to know that V-disks and hi-fi audio are finally getting put to good use, but now they just feel like they're spiting the four men out of their opportunity of a lifetime.</p><p>Pete was overprotective and fully aware of it, rambling on to defend his friends' honor. He was a prince on a quest. Only his kingdom would fall down to Andy's gentle elbowing and concerned expression, as Joe found an incentive to clear his throat take over.</p><p>“What were you thinking?!” mouthed Patrick at Pete from the other side of the light Jade couch. “Love you too.” </p><p>“My friend was trying to get across that singers are significantly less essential in genres outside the mainstream -- our musical mainly combining jazz and electric blues, two genres your label specializes in -- and Patrick is a great singer and songwriter for facilitating what we do. I believe you're aware this label needs more than rip-off Frankie Laines to stay afloat in today's shifting, post-war climate; from one businessman to another, you'd find being ahead of the curve can be quite lucrative.”</p><p>That was not at all what Pete was trying to get across, but it went to show Joe's hidden smarts. That boy hid a layer cunning and ambition inside that he could flip on with a simple cough, never losing his calm attitude. It amazed and frightened Pete in equal amounts, seeing the wheels in Joe's head spin on command in a way they only ever did in intimate ways. Playing guitar solos for the first time, having discussions spurred by smoking reefer, getting help taming their hair before shows.</p><p>It seemed the man opposite them shared Pete's reaction, but only because he hadn't expected such complex words out of his clients. This was the first young, sweaty guitarist he'd met like that: The first one that grew up working a Jewish family business during wartime, one that had struggled to get by after recession. The first one for which appeasing people to get by was second nature.</p><p>The producer eyed them all like a camera set on long exposure. He looked only a few years older than them, neat hair and good dress. A scratchy name tag read ‘Berle Adams’ in cursive across his heart.</p><p>The four of them had dressed as well as circumstances let them: Patrick with his one good pair of suspenders and high-waisted pants, Joe in his colorful Hawaiian shirt (the design hid the grease spots), Pete in borrowed journalist attire with a fun purple tie and Andy dressed up in an ill-fitting suit from his teens blown away by his stylish black aviators.</p><p>Andy had always been the coolest out of them, to nobody's surprise.</p><p>Adams cracked. “Fine, your work has potential. I'll have you audition in front of Irving before letting you sign anything. Oh, and you do need to find a proper leading man before then.”</p><p>“I don't mind the spotlight,” Pete suggested, with that forced pirate smile. Patrick sighed with relief.</p><p>“Oh, and as for lyrics. A few need censoring for public advertising but I've got to raise my hat. You boys are not human.”</p><p>The android shuffled awkwardly, straightening his spine so as not to flinch. Goodbyes. Handshakes. Jokes. Excited stumbles out the door. Buzzing. Secret handshakes.</p><p>And then they were in the lobby, the same one with that stupid, cheap red carpet.</p><p>“Why did you even mind? I'd be awesome if I wasn't human!” Joe punched Pete's shoulder a little too hard.</p><p>Patrick rolled his eyes, still stirring with happiness. “No, it wouldn't. Besides, Pete is very human, just a slightly stupid one!” </p><p>He may have had his arm around Pete, but that didn't mean he was going to let the protective streak go.</p><p>“It would be! Emotions are kinda terrible. You just get nowhere with them,” Joe responded, and maybe Pete was never at ease with him joking about being jealous of the robots on TV. </p><p>“...erhm, except for here,” he mumbled sheepishly when Patrick glared at him. That same fake disapproval.</p><p>“Well, what if emotions aren't only human?” Pete blurted out.</p><p>“I can feel emotions, I mean,” he explained, digging his heels into the carpeting. It was never how he wanted it to go but he'd postponed the conversation enough, and he thought it'd get better if they were already happy. Pete was happy, despite the creeping claws dragging his circuits into hell.</p><p>Andy stopped after a few steps.“What makes you think you're inhuman?”</p><p>“The fact that, well, I'm not a human, for one.”</p><p>Patrick stopped. Joe stopped. The gravity of the conversation wouldn't let them move an inch. The room was dead silent. Pete's mind had never been louder.</p><p>“You- I'd say you need to sit down for this, but you don't have where to-- Patrick, remember how you'd showed me The Time Machine and I ranted about how innacurate the time travel was?”</p><p>Patrick was leaning against the wall, restless, preparing himself for the worst, nodding. Pete wasn't sure what that worst would have been. The words got stuck in his throat, and Patrick waited. Andy waited. Joe eased the tention however he could before Pete was ready to talk, though he seemed rather curious.</p><p>“That's because I know better,” he finally let out. “ I'm from the future, around 2311. I say around because the Gregorian calendar stopped being in use around the late 2000s, and there may have been conversion errors- but that's irrelevant. I am a dividual, or what you probably call an Android.”</p><p>He hadn't said the word dividual in a long time. He never liked the word, it wasn't one that was said with much love. He unraveled the small bandage always on his shoulder, a cattle branded ‘207’. Andy's eyes widened even more as he moved to some far off place between empty and nauseous.</p><p>“How- w-what are you talking about? Can you even prove that?” </p><p>Patrick had taken care of soldiers during the war. He knew better than to trust those insane kinds of claims- the traumatized kind. Patrick doubted him for the first time since they'd met, and it hurt both ways.</p><p>Pete's first instinct was to rat off information. Man first sets foot on the moon in 1969. The Berlin Wall goes down in 1989. Marie Byrd City is founded in 2102. But instead he bit his tongue, took in the longest breath of his life, and screwed open his neck with his short nails to reveal the hollow copper insides. Ore dripped the lies, and hell started to soak the battered red carpet.</p><p>First came the silence, the confusion and alarm in Joe's eyes, the ranch thrown into his life. Patrick was in denial. </p><p>„What...what the hell, Pete?!” And Joe was screaming, freaking out, and it didn't impress Pete any longer. It seemed Joe couldn't switch off his emotions, because they were both just as terrified of each other in that moment.</p><p>The crooked yells came with background vocals so, so very soft. “N-no. No.”</p><p>Pete wished be could lock out the doors, but he couldn't. He deserved to be exhibited to everyone around for the trainwreck that he was. Andy dragged across the room, either to look the doors out of habit or just to move further away. He deserves that too. Empty, empty, empty.</p><p>“You- but you knew! You knew everything and you didn't even-”</p><p>“Don't expect him to. There's, Jesus, there's no one in- in there, huh?” And the background vocals were just as quiet, only venomous. Scared.</p><p>Pete felt the mirror of bones cracking at once, organs unraveling, brain burning to ash, and he wished he had been human enough to feel it for real. He couldn't answer, his life has reached a melting point once again. A coward. An impulsive coward at that.</p><p>“Why shouldn't I? You-” Joe turned to Pete, of course, “talk to me every day and you just-”</p><p>And Patrick's voice was breaking as he responded, thought Pete couldn't hear any of it any longer. He was sure it was the go-tos. Patrick had those, go-to arguments for when he didn't have an argument, for when he was going through the motions. It was part of that high sense of self preservation that Pete could never help but admire.</p><p>“And, he's not a backstabber, Joe. He just... doesn't let his guard down....” And oh, if only Patrick knew how backwards that statement was. </p><p>The only reason he'd heard it at all was because Patrick nearly whispered it in his ear. He had reached out to him, touching his arm just to feel it. Just to figure out wether it was warm, wether there was even a heart beat buried deep inside. Patrick had hugged Pete for warmth in February nights- there wasn't any of that in the way he examined Pete's skin. It was apalling to witness, the blonde's hot teardrops marking Pete's pores like sweat.</p><p>For a second, it felt like old times. The cold touch Pete used to be aquainted with, the same way Patrick would treat strangers that he didn't want to welcome into his life. Yet it was too delicate for that. Too frail.</p><p>It seemed to break Andy as well, to desist whatever sunken apathy had claimed him for that horrible minute. And there was almost an interest in the way Andy talked about him now. Curiosity, novelty.</p><p>“...Well, so what? In the future, science must've advanced enough to be no different than us.”</p><p>Joe protested weakly. He was met with rolled eyes. “I realize you wish you'd play your cards more analitically, but that's no excuse to Pete under the bus. And, yes, Patrick, that does mean he's still human, no need to treat him like a fork.” </p><p>“Shut up!” Patrick at no one in particular. Not cold, not distant. rustled, scared. He took his hand away, leaving Pete cold.</p><p>The singer took off his glasses, wiping away some of the tears with his sleeve. “I- you're right. I'm sorry. You're- I know you're alive, I shouldn't have questioned it. Sorry.” </p><p>And then he ran out. Pete whimpered as he watched him go, unsure of the future, emotionally unready. He hoped they'd still be friends after tonight.</p><p>Then Joe stormed off, frustrated and angry, but with regret lining his throat. Or maybe that was just a sign of all the screaming, either way it held no apology or explanation needed. He was going to return to the restaurant, maybe set something small and useless on fire in the oven, maybe have a smoke outside because he couldn't bear to see the restaurant on his worst days. He liked pretending he was proud of everything in his life. Pete knew that it was all coping.</p><p>Joe wished he could have thought in the long-term years ago, given the diner to his younger brother, Sam. His family thought the diner was all their let-down starving artist of a son had, all he could ever achieve, that his little brother was cut out for more. The pressure from his family. The years thinking that Sam might find himself dead in the war, now to see him struggling. It frustrated him to no end. </p><p>Something that Joe had told him always stuck out to Pete, crystalized words from a conversation they'd had at Patrick's place after a game of Monopoly.</p><p>“Some nights I'd stare at the wall, y'know? Wondering if he hadn't really been drafted. If me and mom and dad had driven him away, if it was my fault, if only I'd acted more composed when we'd fight... What if I made him think I didn't love him? But then Sara would come in because she couldn't sleep and wanted me to check on monsters under the bed...and then I'd take in a deep breath. I guess on those days I needed my little sister more than she'd ever need me.”</p><p>And now Pete wanted to cry too. The fact that he couldn't was salt to the wound.</p><p>Bang! Bang. The crash, the poorly scrapped glass of an old office door ringing and ringing into infinity.</p><p>Andy hurried to unlock the door. He shot Pete an understanding look as the Android turned his back and screwed his neck up.</p><p>Homeboy Adams stormed in, something about not being able to have a smoke on accounting break. He'd been blasting music since their fight had started, didn't catch much of it and didn't care enough to check up on the situation. They were still going to lose their shot at a record deal, so any excuse was good enough to make a swift escape onto the streets.</p><p>“...Mind if I spend the night at you and your family's?” </p><p>“ Not at all, but you might have to sleep on the floor. It gets crowded, my kid siblings like bringing friends for sleepovers.” </p><p>Pete had a deepseated fear that Andy was making excuses because he didn't want him near. That the bedroom door would've been locked. But Andy's smile was genuine enough to set all those feeling aside.</p><p>The two hummed Honeysuckle Rose on their way down the smaller, emptier alleyways. They didn't need to talk to each other, and Pete was actually quite grateful for that (no matter how much he had longed for normal conversation.)</p><p>They were making a right turn on the block when Pete stopped. Andy looked at him, with that same curiosity.</p><p>“I- I kind of need to fill up on energy by the power grid...”</p><p>Andy nodded, slowly. “A bit early to bumb into Joe, don't you think?”</p><p>And in that brief, single moment, Pete decided a 37% battery was a small price to pay.</p><p>Sure enough, the lights were on and the living room was packed with preteens. They were discussing Leave It To The Girls as if half of them actually had seen it on TV, door open.</p><p>The musicians washed their hands and sat down as far away from the kids as possible in the rented first floor of apartment. It wasn't the house that nurtured the ten Hurley step-children for most of their life, a widowed mother in the Great Depression served as proof that they'd move places often. Rent was abysmal.</p><p>Pete spent the rest of the night on the floor, talking, filling Andy's metaphorical cup while the drummer handed him soda water and pine syrup from the kitchen counter. He was going to get caught and killed by the Program for recidivism any minute now, no need to spare details.</p><p>And frankly, this was everything he'd ever wanted. He'd wanted to talk to them them all separately, have a calm discussion. He knew he couldn't. He'd have gotten caught too early to tell them all, and they could've easily talked to each other or reacted negitavely, which would lead the others to figure it out.</p><p>Joe and Andy were both terrible secret keepers, and Patrick has been used to keeping secrets his entire life and his patience had been spread dangerously thin.</p><p>When Andy finally fell asleep by his side, Pete stood there and took it in. Truly took the time to appreciate it.</p><p>At one point he scurvied away and slithered into the living room to grab the radio. He couldn't remember when, but the warm analog music made him grin as he patiently awaited the real monsters.</p>
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